Key Takeaways
- A new study from the University of California finds Latinas outpace Latino men by 17 points or more in how strongly they prioritize protecting immigrant communities, opposing Trump's agenda, and defending democracy.
- Among voters under 30, that gap widens to as much as 30 points — then nearly disappears among college graduates.
- The findings land as Xavier Becerra holds a 22-point lead over Steve Hilton in California's governor's race, according to a recent Public Policy Institute of California survey.
California's registered Latina voters rate protecting immigrant communities, pushing back against President Trump's agenda, and defending democracy as far more urgent priorities than Latino men do, according to a new joint analysis from UCLA's Latino Policy and Politics Institute (LPPI) and UC Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS). Seven weeks out from the November 3 governor's election, the finding poses a direct challenge to both the Becerra and Hilton campaigns: stop treating Latino voters as a single bloc, right as that bloc emerges as one of the most contested pieces of the state's electoral map.
A gap that reaches 17 points
The brief, authored by sociologist G. Cristina Mora along with Nicholas Vargas and Guadalupe Garcia Lopez, found that 69% of Latinas call protecting immigrant communities "very important," compared with 52% of Latino men — a 17-point split. On opposing the White House agenda, the gap barely moves: 68% of women versus 51% of men. On defending democracy and voting rights, the distance narrows to 10 points, even though both groups back it by wide majorities (87% versus 77%).
The sharpest finding involves generational splits. Among voters under 30, 82% of Latinas say confronting the Trump administration is a top priority, versus just 52% of men their age — a 30-point gap. On immigrant protection, the youth gap reaches 28 points (88% versus 60%), and on democracy and voting rights it sits at 18 points (92% versus 74%). The report's authors note these differences run considerably larger than those found among older voters.
Education and language shift the balance too
Gender alone doesn't explain the full picture, the brief argues. Among voters without a four-year degree, the gap widens: 73% of Latinas versus 51% of men on immigrant protection, and 69% versus 50% on opposing Trump's agenda. Among college graduates, though, that distance collapses to just 4 and 7 points, respectively. Language dominance produces a similar pattern: English-dominant voters show a 20-point gender gap on both issues (68% versus 48%), while the gap among Spanish-dominant voters shrinks to just 2 points.
Nearly 2,000 Latino voters surveyed
The brief is the second in a series examining California's registered Latino electorate ahead of November, drawing on the May Berkeley IGS Poll, which surveyed 1,912 registered Latino voters statewide on how important each issue was to their evaluation of gubernatorial candidates — not on which candidate they intend to back.
The stakes extend well beyond California: close to 39 million Hispanic Americans will be eligible to vote nationwide this November, a jump of 5.2 million since 2022, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. California is home to one of the country's largest and youngest Latino populations.
Cristina Mora, IGS co-director at Berkeley and a co-author of the report, said in a statement that "gender tells us part of the story," but that the picture only comes into focus once age and education are factored in alongside it. For Mora, that combined lens is what explains why Latino voters' priorities no longer move in a single direction.
What's really on the ballot in November
The findings arrive in the final stretch of a race often billed as historic — though the label needs a footnote. California already had a Latino governor once before, in 1875, when Romualdo Pacheco ascended to the office after his predecessor resigned, never having won the post at the ballot box. Should Becerra prevail on November 3, he would become the first Latino elected governor in the state's history. The most recent PPIC survey, conducted September 4-10, puts the Democrat at 60% support to Hilton's 38%, a 22-point spread.
With that lead already locked in, the real test for both campaigns is no longer winning Latino voters as a bloc — it's speaking directly to young women who lead on immigration concerns and to young men who trail behind on the same issue. The UCLA and Berkeley researchers themselves caution that the findings say nothing about who will actually win; they measure how much an issue matters to a voter, not which candidate that voter favors.
A warning for campaign strategists
The larger lesson is as much about method as politics: treating California's Latino electorate as a single storyline risks losing sight of the half of it that's currently driving the differences. With mail ballots going out starting October 5, every point of that gap could matter in a state where the Latino vote already tips the scale.
